Wallace House Events

The 26th Graham Hovey Lecture

Hayes Ferguson ’99

Hayes Ferguson delivered the 26th Graham Hovey Lecture, “Access to Obits: Building Legacy.com".  Ferguson is chief operating officer of Legacy.com, Inc., the largest online obituary and memorial site developed in conjunction with over 800 newspaper partners around the world.  It is among the 100 most visited domains on the Internet. Ferguson oversees content, customer service, communications and corporate culture.

At Legacy.com, Ferguson helped revamp and expand a service historically provided primarily by local newspapers. The company’s success sheds light on the value of legacies established by institutions and programs as well as those by individuals. Ferguson shared how her career and sabbatical as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan helped shape her views about the importance of passing stories to future generations. She also added her considerable expertise about technology’s role in preserving legacies.
        
The lecture honors alumni whose subsequent careers exemplify the benefits of sabbatical studies at U-M. It is named for the late Graham Hovey, director of the fellowship program from 1980 to 1986.
           
While at Wallace House (1998-1999), Ferguson studied Latin American immigration and its impact on American culture, economics and politics. Before joining the Evanston, Il based company in 2000, Ferguson was a project writer for People magazine and, earlier, the Latin America bureau chief for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. She started her career selling newspaper subscriptions and was a marketing and sales manager for retailer Esprit de Corp. She is also an adjunct instructor at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University.

The lecture was open to the public.  A reception hosted by University of Michigan Life Sciences Manager, Liz Barry, followed the lecture.

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